@dadork
If you want to hear Pink Floyd as they do, get some ATC active SCM50A, or the larger brother SCM100As or if you can fit them, the SCM150As. They own them, use them in studio since the mid 80s or so? SCM 50s used on the last few new format remixes. You will hear a lot of details that are often missed on many playback systems- which explains why they use them.
I don't know them but I know several of their engineers over the years from the original DSOM to the latest ATMOS mix, and their mix engineers are all extremely fussy about sound and certainly ARE audiophiles. Fussing over what compressors, what EQ's, spending hours and hours to get a specific instrument's sound exactly right, get reverb to have the exact right decay, deciding where to "place" a background vocal because the artist thinks it was wrong in the original, its extremely difficult and can take a long time. A lot of comparison and A/Bing in the studio during the mix process to compare changes to an original or the raw track, or a different setting on a compressor. Some would call it painful - and it's why the band is generally not there, as it is truly like watching paint dry. Listening to one track within a song for hours is not easy. Ive seen it- a 8 bar section of a drum mix for two hours to get the kick right. Some of the engineers hear stuff most of us cannot hear, or zero in some detail we as listeners would not notice. A good example is comparing the dynamic range of a background [multiple] vocal mix vs just the lead vocal; deciding how loud the background vocals need to be vs the lead vocal and then letting the artist decide when they hear what engineer "thinks" could work. This is not a point a shoot process that is defined in the tracking process. Many extremely minor elements of a mix are the MOST important details to some artists (and therefore their engineers). Like the discussion above about sheep in the background, I;ll bet there was a LOT of discussion about that in the mix process by the band and the engineer. Opinions can be very different between artist and engineer but the artist is typically "the decider" so they must agree on a myriad number of decisions within a mix. It must satisfy both engineer and artist. The record company knows zero- there are no audio people there.
This is record making process is the same comparison process that audiophiles go through comparing cartridges, tonearms, turntables, preamps, cables etc. It is identical to a good equipment sales person recommending a specific [phono] cartridge to get the outcome a system owner wants ("the system is a tad too edgy or bright on piano on this specific record", and then a thoughtful sale person knowing the sound of the different cartridges they have and matching that to the system "sound" in a way that will achieve the change the owner wants, only to say "okay, try this cartridge" etc). The sales person can be the engineer and you as the system owner are the artist.
Brad
